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September 13, 2005

Booker action back in the Eighth Circuit

Even though the focus of the legal universe is in DC, the Eighth Circuit continues to churn out significant sentencing opinions. Aided by the official summaries on the 8th Circuit's opinion page, I see a number of notable Booker rulings, and especially catching my eye are US v. Rogers, No. 04-2563 (8th Cir. Sept. 13, 2005) (available here) and US v. Jensen, No. 04-4209 (8th Cir. Sept. 13, 2005) (available here).

Rogers should come with a parental advisory warning, because the facts in this child pornography case are truly scary. (Seriously, skip over this case if ugly facts make you uncomfortable.) Though the facts of Rogers grabs your attention, the legal ruling should not be overlooked: the Eighth Circuit upholds a departure sentence of 360 months up from a guideline range of 57 to 71 months.

The facts in Jensen are just sad rather than scary, and the legal ruling is arguably sad, too. In Jensen, the Eighth Circuit first finds that the government breached a plea agreement by not moving for additional offense level reduction, but then finds that this breach did not amount to plain error and thus the defendant's sentence is affirmed despite the government's breach.